On a bright September day in 2008, 8-year-old Corey Haas went to the Philadelphia zoo with his parents, and screamed. Four days earlier he had undergone gene therapy to cure his hereditary blindness, and now the sun was hurting his eyes. The Forever Fix tells Corey’s inspiring story against the backdrop of other children treated since the field was born in 1990, and those looking ahead to future gene therapy. The treatments pioneered on the children’s rare diseases will reverberate to many more common illnesses.
Ricki Lewis grew up in New York City, earned her PhD in genetics from Indiana University, and has built an eclectic career in communicating science, through magazine articles, public lectures, and a string of popular college textbooks. Dr. Lewis is the author of Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, currently in its 10th edition and used worldwide; co-author of two human anatomy and physiology textbooks; and founding author of the introductory textbook Life. She is author of Discovery: Windows on the Life Sciences, and the novel Stem Cell Symphony, about using rock music to activate stem cells in the brain to cure disease. She is currently a genetic counselor at CareNet Medical Group in Schenectady, NY and teaches Genetics online for the master’s program at the Alden March Bioethics Institute of Albany Medical College.
